DoD's 2015 budget envisions smaller military with less generous benefits

Jared Serbu reports.

The annual budget proposal the Defense Department will formally unveil next week
will call for an overall reduction in the size of the military, along with some
cutbacks to the benefits service members currently receive.

Both of these are decisions the Pentagon says are necessary as it attempts to
preserve the military's readiness.

In a preview of the line-by-line budget rollout the White House and all agencies
will conduct next week, Defense officials said Monday they plan to trim back some
large cost drivers in each military service.

For the Navy and Air Force, that will mostly mean trims to their planned purchases
of weapons platforms.

For the Army and Marine Corps, it will mean tens of thousands fewer uniformed
personnel. The Army, in particular, would be smaller than at any point since the
U.S. entered World War II.

Pentagon officials say the budget still relies on the defense strategic guidance
President Obama issued two years
ago, but with some modifications that will entail more risk because of the
military's reduced size.

While the proposal will not include plans to cut military compensation outright,
some benefits, such as health care and housing allowances, would be scaled back.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said those changes represent a best-case scenario.
They assume DoD will get tens of billions of dollars more money in 2015 than last
year's bipartisan budget agreement currently allows. They also
imagine that lawmakers will bypass sequestration in 2016 and beyond.

If they don't, Hagel warned, the picture will be far bleaker.

In the short term, the military would face readiness and acquisition shortfalls
that significantly compound the problems the Pentagon faced
beginning in early 2013, when many units were forced to cancel training
activities,
and routine facility upkeep fell off the priority list.

"In the longer term, after trimming the military enough to restore readiness and
modernization, the resulting force would be too small to fully execute the
President's defense strategy," Hagel said. "This plan balances a need to protect
our national security with the need to be realistic about future budget levels.
DoD has also completed a detailed plan should sequestration-level cuts return in
fiscal year 2016 and beyond, as is the current law."

Five-year increase

Overall, the Pentagon's budget proposal would ask Congress for $115 billion more
over five years than what is currently allowed by the 2011 Budget Control Act
— the
law which created sequestration.

In 2015, it would boost DoD's spending authority via a one-year special fund
the Obama administration will propose as part of the governmentwide spending
request next week.

The Opportunity, Growth and Security Fund would add $58 billion
to discretionary spending in 2015 via "spending and tax reforms" that the White
House has not yet spelled out. DoD would receive $26 billion of that total.

"The money is specifically for bringing unit readiness and equipment closer to
standard after the disruptions and large shortfalls of the last two years," Hagel
said. "The reason we are requesting this increase over sequestration levels is
because the President and I would never recommend a budget that compromises our
national security. Continued sequestration cuts would compromise our national
security both for the short and long term."

Defense officials said the department's analysis shows that if sequestration stays
in place in 2016, the Army, for example, would have to shrink to 420,000 soldiers,
a size that the Pentagon believes is too small to adequately perform that
service's missions.

But even under DoD's proposal, the Army would alter its previous plans to downsize
its current force of 532,000 to 490,000 troops, instead, cutting back to somewhere
between 440,000 and 450,000. The requested cuts also include a 5 percent
reduction in the size of the Army Reserve and National Guard.

"This reduction is smaller than the 13 percent reduction in active duty soldiers,"
Hagel said. "I'm mindful that many in the guard and reserve community and in
Congress have argued that the reserve component should be protected from cuts,
because they provide more troops at lower cost. If our priority was having the
largest possible force in the event of a large-scale prolonged war, that would be
reasonable. However, we must prioritize readiness, capability and agility. And
while it is true that reserve units are less expensive when they are not
mobilized, our analysis shows that a reserve unit is roughly the same cost as an
active duty unit when mobilized and deployed."